Microsoft .NET Framework – Application Development Foundation

After 2 month of preparation and a weekend that disappeared I have passed my first MCTS exam. It has been an interesting trip with a lot of new knowledge and frustration when the sample questions don’t make sense (But I did pass the exam pass rate criteria with good marginal). I did use the “MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-536): Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Foundation” book for my preparation and Measureup’s online test questions. The book also contain test question both in the book and one a CD. The questions in the book was really good and helpful both the question on the CD was according to me many times outside of the scope and had no connection to the content in the book or the real exam I did take. Measureup’s questions were the closest ones to the real exam and also the question that I did learn most from.

My study strategy was very simple. I did read 2 chapters in the book per week (16 chapters in total). I also did plan to do the labs in the book but I never got the time for it. Instead I did concentrate on the lesson and chapter review questions plus the summary in the end of every part of the book. Need to confess that I did use a lot of the knowledge that I got from the book directly in my work so maybe the lab was not that necessary. The last weekend that totally disappeared from my life, I did go through all lessons and chapter reviews plus summaries. I also did use the Measureup’s web site very heavily. Went trough all 172 question and read all explanations to all questions (this gave me the most). Another good part with the web questions is that it contain link to relevant MSDN sites for more information.